Directed by Jess Shane, Katie Mathews

Logline: Poet Jordan Scott's ambient sound recordings of Guantánamo Bay detention camp taken to bypass its strict media censorship rules, are set against former detainee Mansoor Adayfi's recollections of how sound shaped his experience there.

Synopsis: What are the sounds of Guantánamo Bay Detention Center? In 2015, poet Jordan Scott set out to record the ambient sounds of the prison as a means of bypassing its strict media censorship rules. Today, former detainee, Mansoor Adayfi, recalls how sound shaped his experiences there— both of torture and of hope. The year of the 20th anniversary of the prison, Scott’s field recordings and Adayfi’s memories come together to create a visceral new landscape of this notoriously secret place.

Distribution Contact: WFG

More Details

RUNTIME: 13 Minutes
GENRE: Documentary, Experimental
PRODUCTION FORMAT: HD
LANGUAGE: English
LOCATION: Ontario
TECHNIQUES: Live Action
KEYWORDS: Cultural Analysis, Sound, Prison, Abuse, Sound, Torture, Interrogation, Sensory Deprivation, Solitary Confinement, LGBTQ Filmmaker, Female Filmmaker

Director's Statement: To create Signal and Noise, our team developed a unique visual language that segregated sound from image, to play with the impact of total sensory control over both detainees and media. We hope that our experimentation with the limits of the frame, and the recontextualizing of sounds and images understood as 'background noise' and 'out takes,' will immerse audiences in a newly vivid picture of state dehumanization, and the sounds that kept hope alive for Mansoor and other detainees.